A Passing Glance
by Grand Phoenix
Summary: "Judge not the mirror by its face, but rather for what it does not show." - Children of Aeon maxim. [An anthology of interconnected drabbles set before the beginning of the "Until We Meet Again" rewrite]
1. a passing glance

_A/N: This is not so much a prequel as it is a teaser of things to come, so I wouldn't say there's anything here that spoils too much of the plot for the rewrite. I have three more chapters planned for this, and once those are up and about I'll see where to go from there._

* * *

**1.  
\- a passing glance -**

They were walking down the street, through a crowd of men and women and children going about their day. The sky was a clear, aching blue dotted with the occasional puffy white cloud, the sun was riding high on its seat, and traffic was starting to build up in the lanes. Usagi, Ami, Rei and Makoto were grouped together, enjoying crepes and indulging in casual conversation while Minako lagged at the rear. Thumbs hooked in the pockets of her jeans and Artemis a comforting weight on one shoulder, she relished the warmth beating on her upturned face. She had already finished her treat and was content with simply enjoying the day with her friends.

"I hope the weather stays like this for the rest of the week," she told him.

"It's certainly gorgeous today," he agreed, "but I wouldn't mind having a bit of rain. Just listening to it helps me fall asleep."

"You always sleep; you're a cat."

"Correction: I'm a humanoid Mau alien that can transform _into_ a cat. When we expend too much energy, we switch to that form to replenish it."

"…That's what cats do."

"At least we don't blow it all in five minutes!"

She tapped his pink nose and grinned. "Still a cat."

"_Am not!"_ he went on to say, but the words dissolved into a large yawn and drew them out. His teeth clamped down on her finger and nibbled it.

She giggled. "Kitty-cat. Kitty, kitty, kitty!" Artemis growled in mock anger and threw a paw over her hand, his grip gentle and his bite applied with the slightest pressure.

They came upon a crosswalk thick with pedestrians, and as they arrived the signal switched between the universal symbols for WAIT to GO. They started moving, making their way across the street, and like a water skimmer Minako slipped seamlessly through them, past them, barely brushing up against them. Usagi and the others were not too far ahead; it looked like Rei and Mako were teasing her about something. Most likely about Mamoru, she assumed, judging by the luminescent blush on Usagi's face and the way she gesticulated wildly. Minako smirked, thinking of their escalating relationship, and picked up the pace.

Halfway across, she caught a flash of pink out of the corner of her eye. It was a very brief glance, something so ordinary it would be forgotten within minutes; but Minako stopped, nearly lost her footing and stumbled. She came to a stop and whirled around, searching through the shifting crowd.

She found her walking side by side with another girl, chatting away amicably as they stepped onto the sidewalk. Her long pink was tied in a high ponytail that fell down her back like a waterfall bathed in the light of a sunset, bouncing with each step she took. Her companion listened to her, dark head turned aside to reveal a pair of thick braids tied at the ends over her chest; Minako couldn't tell if she looked bored or tired.

She watched them go, drifting farther and farther away.

The world closed in on her, grew smaller, more confined. Her ears rang and her heart seized.

__—_I must ask you a favor—_

_What do you expect me to do? Find…and protect…from you?_

__—_Teach her. Guide her. But do not let her get hurt, because if you do—_

_I know them,_ Minako thought, and instead of the street she saw a dilapidated building—fallen pillars, slabs of broken concrete, puddles of water pouring from ruptured mains. The howls of horrified citizens as they fled for their lives, the blood-curling war cries of demons as they marched across the trampled gardens and scorched husks of conquered outposts.

_I know these two._

_But…who am I supposed to find and protect? Did she mean Serena?_ She stared hard at the dark-haired girl and felt a stab of anger and regret in her chest. _She reminds me of _her_._

"Mina! Hey, Mina!"

The memories shifted, went further back in time. Eternity Main was on its last vestiges of power, the All-Defense Shield flickering dangerously with spellfire and raining debris. The electricity was sputtering, the emergency klaxons blaring. With Mercury's help the Queen forced the computer's systems to open the doors to the underground tunnels and distribute the coordinates to Andromeda to all the spaceport's ships and escape pods.

Then the Shield collapsed, the lights went out. The Negaforce stormed through the defensive lines. The Sailor Guardians struggled to direct panicked nobles and servants beneath Millennium Hold while the Queen's soldiers rushed to their stations hastily erected within the halls and out in the courtyard. Armor was adjusted, weapons were primed, the ion cannons fully charged and the parameters on the turrets set, shield arrays humming with energy emitting from portable generators.

The memories blurred, mired in obscurity. Then, like a blow to the back of the head:

"_The Princess!" one of the Guardians cried; it could've been Raye or Lita or even Amy. "Where's the Princess?!"_

No one could find her, lost in the madness of the evacuation. But Mina—Venus—knew where. Knew who she would be with.

_She pushed Artemis into the tunnel, nearly toppling him down the steps. "Go find the Queen and protect her!"_

"_M-Mina!" he gasped, sweating, chest heaving, and out of breath. "You can't! The Hold's—"_

"_That's my final order! GO!" Then she was off, Durandal's sheathe bouncing and jangling at her hip. Artemis called her name, called for her to stop, but she ignored him. Heart ramming up against its bony cage, she thought only of Serena and Endymion and where they might be._

And then she came across the girl. Under a stairway tucked away from madness she pet the black scales of a little salamander, uncaring of the collapse of the Grand Solar Alliance, of the lives lost to the fighting, of her own safety. Her eyes were a cold amethyst, and they glared at her as though she was an insect that wouldn't leave her alone.

"MINA!"

She started awake, feeling of Artemis's claws sinking into her shoulder. Blearily, as though she were looking at the world for the first time, Minako found herself standing in the middle of the crosswalk. Sandwiched in between by waiting cars, whose drivers were laying hard on their horns and yelling for her to move.

"Mi-na-ko~!" Usagi cried, and Minako turned to see her waving wildly above the heads of curious pedestrians staring at her. "What are you doing?"

"If you're going to have a blonde moment, save it for when you're not in the street!" Artemis hissed in her ear. "You're holding up traffic!"

She winced. "S-Sorry!" Blushing fierce with embarrassment, Minako hustled the rest of the way to the sidewalk and rejoined her friends.

"What was that all about?" Makoto asked.

"Yeah, are you alright?" Usagi persisted. "You completely spaced out back there!"

"I'm fine, I'm fine!" Minako insisted. "I just…I thought I…saw someone I knew. From school," she finished lamely, and resisted tugging an errant lock of hair.

"You need to be more careful, Mina," said Ami. "You could've gotten hurt."

"I said I'm fine," she grumbled.

Rei stared at her for a moment, face cool and expressionless like stone. Then she shrugged and turned away, focusing forward. "I agree," she said. "Do it where it's safe next time. Don't hurt yourself over someone you barely know."

"Alright, alright! I get it," said Minako, and jutted her lower lip in a pout. "Don't have to tell me twice."

"Just making sure!" said Usagi, give her wrist a playful shake before returning her attention to the conversation they were having before.

Minako lagged behind them, hands now stuffed into her pockets and feet dragging. They passed beneath the comforting shade of trees bordering the Four Guardians Park, where the foot traffic was noticeably thinner. Cars lined parallel the side of the street like erasers on a desk.

"What happened back there?" Artemis asked, his voice hushed and low. "You don't normally space out like that."

She shook her head. "I…I remembered something. From when the Silver Millennium ended. It was important."

"You mean going to find Serena and Endymion?"

"Not just that." Minako gingerly rubbed her temple as the pressure of the memories eased and the world spread out and wide once more. "There were others."

"Who?"

Minako frowned. "I…don't know." She stopped and looked back toward the street, the crosswalk, the two girls lost to the daytime crowd, unaware of what they had just triggered. "But they were very important…and very familiar."


	2. inheritors: die erste

**2.  
****\- inheritors: die erste -**

"_This story has no beginning.  
__This story has no end.  
__This story is ever-changing  
__These bloodied pages the sullied hand must contend."  
_\- Opening stanza in _The Variables of the Eternal Trinity, Vol. I_

* * *

ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a world that had achieved everlasting peace. Violence, famine, poverty, and sickness had been eliminated, and everyone was happy and carefree. They were free to make their dreams come true however they pleased with hardly any struggle at all.

Of course, this would not have happened had it not been for the Lightbringer. She tore down the façade of the Time Before, twisted it into knots upon knots upon knots and unfurled them into incomprehensible and unrecognizable strands of thread and fiber that could never be replaced and recreated Time and Space as befitting her image.

To ensure that the new Cycle would remain unbroken, the Lightbringer usurped the Mother and Her Holy Quartet and stripped them of their ability to rebel, and any such thoughts that entered their minds were wiped clean. She had her dolls follow the Quartet day in and day out, with and without their knowing, and she placed the Mother in a spacious, gilded bird cage for Her to spread Her Wings and Fly.

She could be whatever she wanted to be, because there was peace, and love, and joy, and she would never want for anything, and the Lightbringer was glad. And so time passed, and she and her faithful servants watched the stars wheel across the sky and the earth die and be reborn with the passing of the seasons.

And then, one day, the bird cage _broke_.

* * *

Listen, My Children, and listen well, for I shall only say this once:

Never trust a God in Chains.

Neither, however, should you trust a God with Wings.

There is nothing to be gained by making promises.

Neither, however, there is nothing lost by making lies.

Black and white.

Light and Shadow.

There is no grey. The spaces in between do not exist, save for in the edges of the ginny-knife.

The ginny-knife drinks, the Son receives, the Father taketh, and the Void returns.

Always.

Naught is ever truly gone, My Children. Your flesh. Your blood. Your bone and muscle and marrow. Your very soul. None are beyond your reach.

If you can will it, it can happen.

If you can touch it, you can catch it.

'Tis not luck that guides your hand. 'Tis not love or hate or stillness that guides the flow of the ginny onto your blade. 'Tis not even circumstance—if you are wont to believe it—that guides your footsteps.

Nay.

Nay, My Children! It matters not!

Do you wish to believe?

Do you wish to defy?

I know, and I do not know.

That is for you to decide.

* * *

They stopped at the crosswalk, waiting for the light to change. There were clouds building on the horizon, thick and grey. The sunlight was bright and golden.

Nozomi tipped her head back, closed her eyes, and breathed. "Do you smell that?"

Mikomi looked at her questioningly. Then she imitated her companion and inhaled the air. "I smell…shrimp ramen…and rain."

Nozomi hummed approvingly. "It's gonna come down good."

They stood together, shoulder to shoulder, pink and black among an array of people of differing shapes and sizes and colors. Cars and trucks and vans sped by, lane by lane, turning, going straight ahead.

"Do you think there'll be a rainbow?" asked Mikomi.

"I don't know," said Nozomi. "I hope so."

"Maybe we'll see Miss Iris," said Mikomi.

Nozomi smiled. "Maybe, and even if we don't…well, just the thought's enough."

"Yeah. But I'd like to meet her one of these days."

"Hmmm. Me, too."

The vehicles stopped and the light changed. They crossed the street onto the other side.

"I have a bit of cash on me," Nozomi said, fishing out a wad of crumpled bills and coins from the pocket of her jeans. "Wanna grab some of that ramen while we're at it?"

"Could we?!" The excitement was there, no matter how hard Mikomi tried to suppress it.

"Mmmhm, but there's only enough for one helping." Nozomi counted the cash, nodded, and stuffed it back inside. "Have to watch how much we spend, remember."

"There's still plenty of money in the account."

"Yes, but that has to be used sparingly until Miss Iris gives us more allowance."

They climbed onto the sidewalk.

"If we ever meet her, we should surprise her and take her out to eat one of these days," said Mikomi. "Or maybe someplace she likes. Somewhere nice. It's the least we can do."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," said Nozomi. "For now, we just keep on going. She'll show up when we least expect it."


	3. thy will be done

**3.  
****\- thy will be done –**

"Just _what_ do you think you're doing, Haruka?"

Haruka paused, her arm in mid-throw. She lowered it and showed Michiru the object in her hand. "I'm going to throw this rock and see how far it can skip across the river."

"So you will," said Michiru, "but how about trying it _without_ cheating?" She leveled a pointed glare at the miniature air tornado spinning around the clutched rock. "Honestly."

Haruka snorted and tossed it up and down in the air. "What? Nobody can see it except you and Hotaru. The simple mortal eye can't grasp the true nature of my power." She smirked at that last part.

"The true nature of your power is nowhere near the threshold of what it used to be a thousand years ago," Michiru reminded her. "No one's is."

"Baby, please, can't you go along with it just this once?" Haruka groaned, but then she straightened up, set her shoulders far too back and puffed her chest way too out, a picture of Uranian pride and female confidence. "Y-You're not innocent, either! I see the way the water reacts every time the rock skips!"

Michiru pulled up a hand holding the book in her lap to inspect the lacquered, turquoise nails. "Oh, that? I think believe that's called luck. Or, and I'm going to take a really wild stab in the dark, perhaps it's magic—which it _could_ be. The magic that street performers use and the magic we reincarnates use are on the opposite ends of the Sorcerers' Spectrum."

"Hah hah, I'm _dying_ with laughter." Haruka rolled her eyes, but she caught the small, mischievous smile on Michiru's lips and so she too smiled. "Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to handicap myself. The better to improve this awesome power of mine, right?"

"'We are the Unseen, the Unknown and the Unsung. We are the Guardians who know only the cold embrace of the Far Side. In the Name of the Holy Moon, may the Hand of Justice be swift and cruel.'" Michiru snapped the book closed and set it down beside her on the bench. "Do you remember that?"

Haruka's eyes had widened to the size of dinner plates. "That's when we were officially inducted into the Outer Court. It consisted of people Queen Serenity personally handpicked, people that had a wealth of potential but due to circumstances didn't stand out too much. Like us."

Michiru looked toward the river, its surface calm and peaceful. Earlier the sun had gone into the clouds and its light was washed and muted, but on Neptune the day had been clear and bright. There were ducks sailing across the waters, but on Neptune the whales of the Oceanus Conglomerate rammed their herculean bodies against transport ships instead of maneuvering around them as they had in the past. The trees stood tall and shed a whirling storm of samaras from a particularly strong breeze, but on Neptune the crystal towers of the Manakademia spewed smoke and its aqueducts ran red with blood and black with oil instead of life-giving, liquid blue.

Somewhere over the horizon, in the present, she could make out the red and white needle that was the Tokyo Tower.

Somewhere over the horizon, lost in the fog of the past, she could make out the windows of the royal palace, Atlas Point, bursting in brilliant diamond showers as gunfire and homemade bombs rained from below, no doubt originating from a frightened, angry mob huddled together on the front quad.

Two seconds has passed in reality, but in her mind—in that moment—she was Michelle Tidus, disgraced heiress to the Coral Throne.

She blinked, and the smoke-hazed sky, maddened whales, and the skeletal husks of scorched buildings were swept clean, replaced by the distant dream that was the Tokyo high-rise.

_Just like us, huh?_

_Really, Amara…._

_Can you say the same about yourself?_

_No, _she decided, not for the first time. _No, I don't think so._ She smiled, pretty and as disarming as she can be. "Indeed," she agreed. "In war, we all look the same way."

"And war…war never changes," Haruka concluded, nodding her head. "But let's have no more talk of war, not on such a pleasant day like today! And not to a pretty face such as yours, if I do say so myself."

Michiru laughed. "You're as roguish as ever, dear. I'll be sure to give you a special treat later tonight."

Haruka's eyes lit up, teeth bared in a knowing grin. "Oh-ho!"

"Yes, there should be one last slice of that chocolate strawberry cake in the fridge. I'd wanted to remind you about it yesterday, but you had gone out to retrieve the car from the repair shop. It's all yours."

She had to stifle the laughter threatening to burst as she watched the other woman's face collapse. Haruka stared at her, unamused. She sniffed, tossed the rock, and caught it sideways, her arm a blur of color and motion. "I'm gonna go grab more rocks," she said, and stomped away toward the riverbank.

Michiru saw her off with a fondness in her smile. "She'll get over it," she said to herself. She folded one leg over the other, stretched her arms above her head and settled them on the curve of the bench behind her.

It was a good day to be out and about, people enjoying themselves, dogs sunbathing or relaxing in the shade or fetching sticks from the shallows. Someone was cooking meat on the grill, most likely a ways back at the picnic area. The sky was clear and the clouds on the horizon were like watery drops of paint, but the food would be long done and consumed by the time they filled the city with their load. She inhaled deeply. _Rain…and plenty of it. Not a thunderstorm, but I can't be certain. Makoto would definitely know. Her _numen _supersedes my own._

She turned her head away, in the opposite direction Haruka had gone, to look upon the group of children seated on the grass with their fishing poles. Hotaru was absent and for a moment Michiru wondered where she had run off to, but Hotaru could take care of herself. She had considered tracking her down and 'help' her reel one in to bring home for dinner, but a glance at Haruka scooping handfuls of dirt, sand, and pebbles shut that out. _That would render our point moot, now wouldn't it?_

_Oh well, they'll still be there when we come again next time._ _The year is young._

There were others who skipped rocks at their leisure. Her gaze roamed, taking in the children and young adults for no more than a second before moving on to the next person. By now Haruka had an ant hill of pebbles of various sizes, and judging by the change in the air she had foregone the handicap and was ready to let loose on the river. _You never learn, do you?_ Michiru smirked and shook her head. _Ah, who am I kidding? Never change, my dear._ She turned her head back the other way, and paused.

Not far from where Haruka slouched and grumbled, there were two girls. One was tall with long black hair, the other shorter but with long legs and pink hair tied in a high ponytail. They wore the white blouses and long blue skirts, Juuban High's primary colors, and their bookcases were set off to the side, higher up on the bank in the grass where they would not get wet. The dark-haired one was showing her friend the rock in her hand, pointing at it here and there, and the other girl nodded in understanding.

Michiru sat up, leaned forward.

Tall-and-Dark adjusted her footing, rolled her shoulders. She tossed the rock in the air once, snatched it, and whipped her arm out. The rock cut across the water, bouncing one, two, three times…

Four, five six….

_The droplets fell from the chandelier and landed in the fountain, creating perfect, circular ripples that spread and crept away, losing their shape, retaining their meaning._

_Michelle reclined in her chair, pushed back with the tips of her shoes, and looked up at the ceiling where the leaves of the weeping willow shrouded the glass prisms. Willows always had a reason to cry, and the stories of its existence had a variety of interpretations one could take away from: for joy, that life had been borne from the tears of Neptune Himself, He who so loved the Cosmos he would bear the burden of civilization upon his back; for grief, when the First Blood was spilled, done by man or done by beast, and so Neptune wept, knowing that this was Nature, the Law of Cycles, and that Life and Death and Rebirth were inevitable._

_Michelle had been told as a girl that He wept for humanity, for they were lovely and terrible and imperfect, and regardless of how many mistakes they made and how many times they would atone for them they would never learn, and the Cycle would be repeated once and forevermore—_

_Michelle liked to believe all those interpretations were true. For He so Loved and Hated humanity, but He held them up because it was His Mission, and if He forsook His Mission the world would End, sink beneath the waves _LIKE THE SKIPPING STONES _and leave scars upon His face, His loins, His bosom—_

"_Is she here?"_

Michiru blinked.

_Michelle blinks with a start and sits up, eyes forward. There is a client._

There was a girl with long black hair. They were braided in two thick ropes that dangled as she bent to grab another rock.

_There is a girl with long black hair. It spilled over her shoulders and down her back, and she brushed a hand across her forehead to move them from her eyes. Purple eyes. The eyes of a Saturnite._

"_I…I'm sorry?"_

"_The Archmeister. I was told she is here today."_

_The Archmeister._

The Archmeister.

_Trista._

_You,_ Michiru thought. _You're alive._

_You don't even know, do you?_

_You don't even see me, do you?_

The keystone was an icicle on her breast. The eternano in her veins, Neptune's dying breath, cooled her blood and formed frost on her fingertips.

_NO, NOT HERE,_ said Michiru's rational side. _REMEMBER WHERE YOU ARE. DON'T BE FOOLISH._

_YOU ARE A SOLDIER, _said Michelle Tidus. _A GUARDIAN. IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT TERRA FROM INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL INFLUENCES UNTIL THE GREAT FROST ENSHROUDS THE LAND AND THE HALLS OF CRYSTAL TOKYO ARISE._

_YOU CAN'T._

_YOU CAN. HER BACK IS TURNED, AND IF HER FRIEND SO MUCH AS FLEES YOU TAKE HER, TOO._

_IT'S NOT RIGHT._

_BEING RIGHT IS THE RITE OF AN INNER GUARDIAN._

_SHE'S INNOCENT!_

_NO, SHE'S GUILTY! SHE KNOWS NOT THE WEIGHT THE BLOOD ON HER HANDS BEAR._

Behind the headrest of the bench, Michiru rubbed her fingers. Ice grated on ice against exposed skin, but it did not bother her. It soothed her, washed over her like the falls pouring over the lips of Atlas Point. Into the ocean. Into Neptune, where water, oil, and the blood of the innocent and the damned mingled.

_It's all her fault,_ said Sailor Neptune. She brought an arm up and around, and held her hand aloft before her. Poised at the girls, fingers ready to snap._ I lost everything because of her. My life, my home, my family, my friends._

_She is an enemy of the Alliance._

_She is an enemy of the Outer Court, and the future Queen of Terra._

_I don't care if she's ignorant._

_There will be Justice—_

"Michiru-mama! Lookit what I've got!" A hand clasped her shoulder.

Her eyes flew open. She spun around and _How did she get behind me? How…No…No! NO—_

Michiru shot to her feet and went around the girl, pulled her arm behind her back and kicked her knees. Hotaru stumbled and dropped the fishing pole. She fell forward and went down on one knee as the Guardian's foot connected with the other. She twisted her head to look at her. "Michiru!" she said, and winced. "Michiru, wake up! It's me! I'm not—!"

"Michiru!"

Michiru froze. Her jackknifed fingers stopped centimeters of Hotaru's eyeball.

Haruka had her hand on Michiru's shoulders, holding her back; the wind sliced into her skin and the blouse in her grip. She panted, her eyes darting between her lover and student and the startled bystanders. "Oh man…Michiru—"

"Not again." The frost evaporated into eternano, retreated back into her body. Her arm dropped to her side and her hold on Hotaru loosened and let go. She backpedalled into the bench and, knees buckling, collapsed into it. She stared at Hotaru, and then buried her face in her hands. "I…I didn't mean to—"

"It's alright," said Hotaru. "I'll still forgive you. Here," she picked the fishing pole off the ground, "I got us lunch. For tomorrow." A carp dangled from the hook piercing its lip. "You can help me gut and clean it."

Michiru lifted her face and looked at the fish, and the fish's dull, dead eyes looked back. Manic laughter and shameful tears welled in her throat and eyes. After all these years, from the time of the initiation to the fall of the Alliance, the millennium of deep sleep, reincarnation, and the few years after the Outer Court—what remained of them—was reunited, Hotaru forgave her. Even after the way Michiru had treated her—

_Neptune take me, I don't deserve your kindness._ "…That's great, Hotaru," she said, but the words felt forced and hollow. "Of course I'll help." _And if I should mistake you again, you'll be there to stop me. You and Haruka…._

"We should go," said Haruka. She glanced at the nearby pedestrians watching them. Some already had their phones out.

Michiru nodded. "Yeah. Come on, Hotaru." She grabbed the book she had almost forgotten from the bench.

When they were at the parking lot, she looked over her shoulder. They were far away from the river, and she did not know if those girls were still there. Did they see what the common folk almost saw?

Michiru sighed. The Rational Michiru wallowed in guilt for losing herself to the past. They were just kids, a little younger than the Inner Court, who had probably decided they would enjoy the day at the park after being let out of school. They would never have thought they would almost be witness to a brawl, or worse, a murder.

Michelle Tidus reminded her to never forget the past, for it gave her power to survive, the will to persevere, and a purpose in life. _She did it before, and she'll do it again. So long as she lives, your life and the lives of your fellow Guardians, of Terra, and those who will come after the Thaw will be in jeopardy._

_I know, _said Sailor Neptune. She pressed the book closer to her, the leather spine creaking.

_I _know_._


	4. fool's luck

**4.  
****\- fool's luck -**

Mami picked up her head and looked at her. "Nagisa, get back here; you'll catch a cold."

Nagisa ducked back into the alley, frowning worryingly at her elder. The rain was coming down good, like a drummer going through his warm-ups. Nighttime rain always made the clouds look cotton candy pink and made her hunger for sweets. Sweets made people happy unless their teeth were sensitive.

Seeing Mami clutch the ghost of her left arm made more than just Nagisa's teeth ache. In the dim glow of the street lamp, Mami's face glistened with sweat and rainwater dripping from the overhanging gutters.

"How is it?" Nagisa asked, knowing the answer.

Mami's grip on the cloak loosened. "It's fine. It doesn't hurt so much anymore."

Nagisa stepped forward. "May I see?"

Mami drew her knees up to her chest. "I said it's fine, Nagisa," she said. The steel was cool in her voice. "I know what it looks like—"

Nagisa kept walking, and then she was crouching next to her. Mami flinched, curled even deeper into the cloak. Nagisa's frown broadened, but she reached out and touched the cloak, which was really just a big tarmac sheet. Mami flinched again and issued a low, piteous whine, so low one would have to be almost on top of her to hear, but Nagisa ignored it. She lifted the flap and peered at the arm.

After a while, Nagisa let go and sat up on her haunches. "It's not spreading…but it's getting darker."

Mami looked away; her hair had long since come undone from their typical drills, leaving it to pool over her shoulders in a cascade of diluted gold. "I can't help it. I don't have to do anything, it just does."

"I know." Nagisa brushed the hair from Mami's eyes and placed the flat of her hand against her forehead. "It doesn't feel like you're burning up anymore, so that's a good thing."

Mami scoffed, pulled the cloak tighter to her body.

Nagisa let her hand drop. "I know you're tired of hearing me say this, but I think if we had more time and circumstances leaned more in our favor I would have made sure you had considered your options more carefully. By doing so we could've—"

Mami laughed bitterly and looked at Nagisa from the corner of a narrowed eye. "There was no time, Bebe, and there were no options." She shook her head. "No. No. I had no intention of dying then. I had no intention of getting captured. I still don't. So tell me, which would you have chosen?"

Nagisa said nothing.

"That's what I thought," said Mami, and now the steel was hot and its sting sharp and cruel.

Nagisa reached out to her. "Mami—"

"Don't look at me like that," said Mami, hunching her shoulders. Her face was turned away, but Nagisa knew what was on there. She knew how tempered and brittle her voice was, too. "I don't…I don't need it. What's done is done. I will live with it even when time runs out and I…." She fell silent, rubbed a hand up and down her left arm.

The rain continued to fall. Traffic came and went, honking their horns, going through puddles, turn signals colored beacons in the mist and fog.

A raindrop jackknifed from the heavens and plopped right between Nagisa's eyes. She blinked but didn't bother to remove it as it ran down the side of her nose, over her cheek, and falling again, onto the pavement. "We'll get there," she said. "She'll help us."

"Nagisa, you said the same thing last week. And I…I doubt Raye…whatever name she goes by now…if she even exists in this universe…will want to help a stranger. Not the way I am."

"One way or another, she'll have to." Nagisa put her back against the wall and mimicked Mami's posture. She stared up at the pink-grey clouds, allowing the rainwater from the sky and the gutters—which looked very shiny and very old in the shadows cast by the street lamp—to run down her face. It felt cold, refreshing, as though all the sins accumulated throughout lifetimes, timelines, and universes were being washed away. "Memories don't stay buried for long."

Later, when the weather subsided and the traffic let up, Nagisa snatched the umbrella lying next to her and popped it open. She turned to Mami. "How are you feeling? Can you stand?"

Mami grunted, pushed off the ground and onto shaky feet. Then, pushing off the wall, she swayed, one foot shifting to the other, again and again, until she gained a semblance of balance. She pulled part of the tarmac made into a makeshift hood over her head and tied the frayed rope into a knot. She pulled the sheet close to her so that it covered her left arm and the majority of her body and took a step. Then another, another, and then one more. "I'll manage," she said.

Nagisa nodded, looked out at the streets and beyond, toward the horizon. "I wonder how Kyoko and Sayaka are doing."

"I'm sure they're fine."

"I wonder where they are."

"Anywhere but here, I hope."

"Oh." Nagisa sounded dejected.

Mami hobbled up to her, let go of the cloak and grasped her shoulder. "I don't mean to sound like I don't care, Bebe. I do. It's just …if anything should happen to me if we run across them…."

"It's okay," said Nagisa, quietly. She reached behind her and clasped Mami's hand with her own. "I understand."

They set out into the psychedelic nightlife, losing themselves among the crowd.


	5. pandora in absentia

**5.  
****\- pandora in absentia -**

"Have you found her yet?" She asked him.

"No, My Lady," he said. "We didn't find her."

"Have you found the Tool and the Pithos?" She asked him.

"No, My Lady," he said. "They were here, but now they are not."

"And the others?" She asked him, Eyes narrowing.

"No, My Lady," he said. "They are neither here nor there."

Her lips pulled into a frown. "You lie, Kyubey," She said.

He started. "No, My Lady!" he said. "I…we…speak the truth!"

"Then if the Tool and the Pithos were here, then you would know where they've gone."

"Except we don't," he said. "There is only its eternano, and it is just about spent. All the collective effort of my kind wouldn't be enough to know _where_ to begin our search."

She stepped forward. "That's not good enough."

"But it's true—!" He hopped away as the butt of the tin soldier's spear came crashing down. He glanced up at it, and it stared back at him, the foxfire glow of its round eyes dim and dangerous beneath the shadow of its shako. Its head twitched once, twice, on the stem of its neck, clattering, and then stilled.

The tooth-riders laughed and spat at him and prodded him with their lances, and the tooth-walkers gnashed their teeth and pointed the barrels of their cannons at him. The dolls simply stared, smiling their empty smiles.

Kyubey let his crimson gaze roam, and once again he became intimate with fear. Fear, quietly gnawing on his insides, worming into his brain and making itself at home, sowing his thoughts with its seed.

He cursed himself for being subjected to this torture, and he cursed the Devil for gifting him—and his people—with these _things_. These…_emotions_. They couldn't think properly when afraid, couldn't concentrate with the monster looming above them, couldn't damn well be alone, in body and in mind, with Her _Eyes_ on them. Those damned Eyes….

Her Shadow fell upon him, and he quailed and felt his ears press against his head even as he inwardly railed against this disgraceful action. Her Face was one of disgust, disdain, a picture of the superior animal observing the insignificant gnat between its claws; and this beast would wonder: _What shall I do with this thing? Shall I crush it into a bloody paste? Shall I lift it to my maw and swallow it whole? Or shall I roll it hither and dither and hope I shan't grow bored of its suffering?_

Or perhaps, he thought, perhaps She would do nothing at all. She had him and them where She wanted: always close to Her, the Shepherd tending to Her sheep. That, he believed, was the worst sin of all.

"_Find them!_" She growled. "I don't care in which order; either one will bring us closer to Madoka. Should you discover these signs, any sign, I want you to report back to Me."

Kyubey bowed his head. "Yes, My Lady."

"_Immediately,_" She added.

"Of course, My Lady. Make no mistake—We will find them."

"Yes," said Homura, looking behind Her. Back at the house of Twice Madoka, basked in the moonlight of Hubpoint Misakihara. It was both familiar and unfamiliar, a schisms of what-ifs and inside-outside. "We will find them together."

The Clara Dolls turned their heads as one and regarded Her, all of them cocked at an inquisitive angle. One of them hiccuped and choked back what sounded like a sob.

Kyubey attempted to suppress a shudder. He failed, and hated himself all the more.


	6. miracle hunt

**6.  
****\- miracle hunt –**

"Say, Sayaka."

"Hmm?"

"I've been thinking…."

"That's something that doesn't happen often."

Kyoko shoved Sayaka's shoulder, glaring. "I'm serious!"

"Well so am I."

Kyoko grumbled and stirred the ramen noodles in their cup. "No, listen. What are the chances they'll recognize us?"

"It's always going to be fifty-fifty. Either they do or they don't."

"But those odds can fall into our favor if they recognize us by appearance alone. Dintcha say once that ya can put a face to a person if ya can't think of the name?"

"Yeah."

"So if they don't know us by name but by our faces, there's a chance they could be the originals and this universe the default sector."

"Do you realize _how small_ of a chance you're talking about? And since we're on the topic, you'd have to factor in the similarities and the differences between each universe, which there is an infinite number of dependent on the choices made throughout not just local history but global history."

"It's still fifty-fifty no matter how you look at it," said Kyoko.

"And I've been telling you it's not. Not if you take those factors into account," countered Sayaka, pointing her chopsticks at Kyoko. "The more possibilities we have, the lower the percentage is—"

"And the harder it'll be to find the right people between jumps." Kyoko swept an arm out, indicating the busy street beyond their humble bench. "For all we know, we could be in a universe where the Dark Kingdom was eliminated but all the Guardians died in the process!"

"If we're in such a universe, then we'll just make another jump."

"Or, you know, we could force open the Brink," said Kyoko, tapping the chopsticks against the side of the cup. "That'll definitely get the Archmeister's attention."

Sayaka nodded. "We could…but it'd also get Homura's attention, too. In which case—"

"We'd have to run. Again." Kyoko huffed, leaned back against the hardwood curve of the bench. "Damn brat doesn't know when to quit."

"That 'brat' just happens to be a god who can wipe our personalities clean with a single glance."

"And she just so happens to be obsessed with Madoka, Our Lord and Savior…."

"That's…debatable, but that's the whole reason she's after us, anyway."

"Or Mami and the Kid. Homura's not the type of god to be in two places at once."

"What's to say she hasn't picked it up along the way? She might've gotten herself a power boost. Maybe she met the Not-Homuras or the Twice-Homuras in between jumps, mantled them, and assimilated them."

"Or forced the mantle on them," Kyoko grumbled.

"…Or forced it on them," Sayaka repeated, and she fidgeted nervously. "There are too many variables to consider. Too many fractals."

"Well, I think if Homura had gotten a hold of one or the other, or both, we would've known by now. This universe is practically swimming in eternano." Kyoko's chopsticks traced nonsense patterns in the air, dripping tears of broth. "Shame the Queen's people don't know how to use it."

"But that doesn't mean the Guardians exist in this universe," said Sayaka. "Even if we tried to reach out to them, there are over, what, thirteen million signatures in Tokyo alone we'd have to sort through. It's only in manga and anime a person can filter the masses down and pinpoint who they're looking for just like that." She snapped her fingers.

"You're getting the thirteen million from…the 2010 census, right?"

"Yeah."

Kyoko tapped her chin. "Lessee…It's the year 2017 here. From what you told me, Japan collects the info every five years, so we missed it by two years. So…if the population in Tokyo was thirteen million, then the population might be slightly higher, and instead of thirteen million we could be looking at, I dunno, let's say fifteen million. Maybe twenty, if the country got out of the recession and experienced population growth on top of that long-awaited baby boom."

They sat in silence for a while, enjoying the rest of their cup ramen. Schools were still in session, so the park—Kyoko couldn't help but scoff at seeing that it was also called Four Guardians—was relatively quiet. ("Time is a flat circle, indeed," Sayaka commented once, in a jump that had taken them to 1992 Azabu-Juuban, a world that never saw the Guardians reborn…and the Dark Kingdom emerged unhindered. She had stared at the dilapidated sign for a long time before she turned her gaze to the distant, broken tooth that was the Tokyo Tower, rearing up around the skeleton of the city like a post-mortem erection.) There were a few kids here and there with their parents at the playground or throwing fish food into the koi pond, but nature was their means of solace, regardless of whether they were returners—Luna's populace displaced by the Queen's Diaspora following the Fall of the Alliance—or the fugitive Knights of the Mother Goddess Kaname Madoka, inheritors of the Light of Hope.

Sayaka drank the broth, crushed the Styrofoam cup, and without looking tossed it into the nearby garbage can; it bounced off the rim and landed neatly inside. She folded her hands behind her head, stretched her legs out, and stared at the sky. It was a washed out blue, brought on by last night's rain. "I wonder if they're here, too," she said.

"Depends on who you're talking about," Kyoko said around a mouthful of noodles.

"The Pithos and the Tool. I wonder if…if they were brought here."

"Fractals, Sayaka."

"Yeah, yeah." Sayaka's eyes roamed across the greensward, bypassing trees familiar and unfamiliar, landmarks old and new, the sign of the park that was not spattered in blood and cracked down the middle but displayed humbly in the middle of a brick arch. There were a few people walking down the street or crossing it to the other side for whatever reason—

People on the street….

Sayaka sat up, grabbed the curved seat of the bench, leaned forward for a better look. The shadows fled from her face and rekindled its fire, her body thrumming with newfound energy upon the state of recognition. "Kyoko," she rasped, blindly groping for the girl's shoulder. "Kyoko, look!"

Kyoko grunted as she felt the hand graze across her face. "What are ya doin'? I'm tryin' to eat here!"

"Quit stuffing your face! Amy and Lita just went by!"

"Say what?" Kyoko sat up so quickly the bones in her back creaked and crackled. Her head snapped toward the street beyond the arch.

Sayaka stood and tugged on her arm. "Come on! We gotta catch them!"

"Whoa whoa whoa, hold on a sec!" Kyoko pulled her arm back. "How do you even know it's them?"

Sayaka scoffed, threw her arms up in the air. "Kyoko, no one in Japan, let alone the world, has hair as blue as Amy Enodios. B-Besides me, that is!" she sputtered upon the half-lidded, deadpan stare directed at her. "I-It's the eternano that does it!"

"Riiiight," Kyoko said, rolling her eyes. "But how do we know it's _them_? How do we know Sailor Mercury is _the_ Amy Enodios and Sailor Jupiter _the_ Lita Fulgens?"

"Well we won't know unless we ask, right?"

"Oh, sure, let's go up to them and tell them we're two teenage girls who've been crossing dimensions trying to find and safeguard the Tool and the Pithos, all while getting separated from two other girls we don't know jack where or when they landed in, and avoiding capture from a more than royally pissed off god whose powers may not be waning anymore. Yeah, they'll definitely believe us!"

"Of course we don't tell them that! If they're not the originals, then they're not going to understand any of it!" Sayaka took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled. "But if we ask about the Tool and the Pithos," she continued, more calmly, "they might be able to help us."

"They're not gonna know who they are, either—"

"I know, and that's the point. Remember what Madoka told us? Before she opened that waygate? The Pithos will be in the care of the Sailor Guardians, and if Homura's smart—and she should be—she'll have sent her Tool to go there, too. We know what they look like. All we have to do is play dumb…and ask them if they've seen them. Say we're their friends because…well, we kinda were, weren't we? In the previous timelines before the Rebellion. And that we really need to find them for, I dunno, some reason. I'll think of something."

"Alright, alright, I get it," Kyoko said, waving a hand dismissively. "We keep 'em in the dark until we're certain. Geez, Sayaka, we've done this enough times already. But let me do the talking; you take too long to get to the crux of things."

"Says the person who keeps asking every Guardian incarnation we come across if they had American names, like Celeste or Maggie or Monica! Or if they were undercover galactic defenders, like that one dimension we were in where in the future Earth was run by megacorporations, the Guardians were called Sailor Scouts that traveled through space on motorized sailboards, and Amy was one of those cyborgs that came straight out of a Seven Arcs anime! Do you remember when you asked her, Kyoko? 'Cause Miki Sayaka remembers!" Sayaka hissed at this last part, eyes wild and nostrils flaring.

"Man, how was I supposed to know we were trespassing private property? And thanks to Madoka, we're more than Puella Magi; we heal shit quickly, so you really shouldn't complain."

"Whatever! We're going to miss Amy and Lita the longer we stand here shooting the shit, and you and I both know we can't waste any of that time. Come on! And for Light's sake, finish up already and move your fat ass!"

"Eat my short-shorts. I move my ass when I want to." But Kyoko was off the bench and moving, shoveling the last of the noodles into her mouth and slurping down the broth. Her arm shot out, and Sayaka stopped short as the cup sailed across her path toward the garbage can. It sank inside with nary a sound.

She smacked Sayaka on the rump, smirking at the scandalous squawk the girl made. "Let's bounce, slowpoke."


	7. fate weaver

**7.**  
**\- fate weaver -**

Makoto stopped and listened to the earth. They were whispering through the soles of her feet and up the canyon walls of her legs, the grit of the sidewalk rumbling in their reed-thin, insectile voices, the hundreds of thousands of miles of earth beneath its foundation groaning, yawning, shifting to accommodate the weight of man and animal and plant and all their building blocks upon their colossal shoulders. And there were hundreds of thousands of voices clamoring for her attention, some loud (but thankfully not so loud) as hurricane sirens, some quiet as the static in one's ear when placed inside the hollow of a conch shell, hoping to catch a snatch of Lord Neptune's last breath or Mercury's muffled footsteps, and she could not make sense of any of them.

_Stop, stop! One at a time, ONE. AT. A. TIME!_ she yelled at them, but Terra would have none of it. They were one and many, their language millennia older than the tongues the gods bestowed upon their creation, after they were borne from the Void and lay down to rest, or Jove broke His maul upon the Voidfather Zurvan with a thunderous crash and from His splinters the pantheon scattered among the galaxy so that He would not reform. Terra was slow and ponderous, quick and persistent, firm in place and complacent, and their voices crowded the inner walls of her head, clamored and whispered and yelled and expostulated.

Had she not been one of the _metem_, a product of transmigration, Makoto would've endured a great deal of pain both physical and mental depending on Terra's persistence: cardiac arrest, hearing loss, anterograde amnesia, internal bleeding, schizophrenia; at worst, she would die instantly, and it would have been a godsend from Jove than to endure a torture of being rendered immobile and vegetative.

But Makoto was the metem Lita Fulgens, the once and future Inner Guardian of Jupiter (as all the Guardians in the Inner and Outer Courts were in that bygone time), so instead of the horror a Terran newborn or a metem untrained in magic would have been subjected to, Makoto experienced an annoyance that was all too common:

"Ami," she said, "my ears are ringing." And so they were, because once she regained her bearings from the initial onslaught and tuned out the voices, they sounded nothing more than the buzzing of insects scenting food left unattended to.

Ami had stopped walking before she had spoken, perhaps noticing that Makoto wasn't at her side. "Are they _just_ ringing, or are they…?"

"No, they're ringing." There was resurgence in volume, taking her aback with a wince. "So noisy..."

Normally Ami would have disregarded the idea of Terra speaking, but Ami too was metem—Ami Enodios, Guardian of Mercury. In the Silver Millennium, Mercury was a temperate planet, its summers cool and its winters Antarctic, and more often than not it rained or snowed. There was plenty of water to be found, preserved in aquifers and dams and reservoirs and tanks and barrels. Water was life: man came into the world from the water of the womb with water in his veins, and man went back into the water by water with the water in those veins flooding into the ley lines of the earth and the invisible chains that anchored the sky in place.

So Ami could relate to Makoto's ear ringing, because she too could feel Terra speak through the soles of her feet. But most of all, she heard them in her veins: gushing, roaring, chuckling, gurgling, hissing. Her tics were more than ear ringing; her fingers twitched, her toes curled, and the tiny muscles in her eyelids and on the sides of her nose jumped like kernels popping in a microwaveable bag. "Yes," she said. "I can't understand a word they're saying." And when could they ever? They were Guardians, but that didn't always mean they could make sense of what the elements were saying. Even in the past, after they had unlocked their bodies' circuits during their training, the elements were stubborn and resisted the lure of incantations and magic circles (for they were like gravity wells); most of the time they outright refused to allow those mere mortals to make use of the eternano all around them. It had taken much persistence—and very thick skin—to put up with their cajoling, jeering, taunting, suspicions, and doubts before the Guardians were finally able to convince them they were deserving of their title and more than capable of handling the strain such immense power brought.

Makoto frowned. "Neither can I. Except" she shifted from one foot to another, and Terra protested at the abrupt disconnection "the eternano feels…disturbed. Not in a bad way, though. It's more like it's…"

"Displaced?"

"Exactly! But…it doesn't feel like anyone we know is making jumps from one place to another. Unless it's—"

"Usagi," they echoed, deadpan, and Makoto laughed. "Hey, Mina's no better! If there's a bargain sale going on, you can bet she'll abuse it!"

"I can only imagine how the Old Gods must feel," said Ami, "knowing the metem of Guardian of Venus, nay, the High Guardian of the Inner and Outer Courts, has developed a neurosis for shiny objects and currently trending fashion. But if it keeps her mind off her duties for just a little bit…."

"Ami, this is Minako we're talking about. These neurosis…they happen, you know? Like me always thinking every cute guy that walks by reminds me of Nephrite before he defected. And there's your obsession with shoujo-ai—"

"It is _not_ an obsession!" Ami stammered. There were roses blooming on her cheeks, and she turned her face aside to hide them. "…I-It's an academic interest in relationships that were once considered abnormal."

Makoto nodded. "Uh huh."

"I grew up around a lot of women before the War, you must know, more so than the men that were assigned to my protection, for not only was I heiress to the throne but I was heiress to the Enodios Conglomerate. My social life, before I met the rest of the Guardians between then, was no different than how it was before the Diaspora, so it's understandable that I would slate my curiosity on fictional and nonfictional prose depicting character development and interaction between the sexes. I'm not ashamed to admit that."

"Sure you do."

"I mean it!" Now the redness was overcoming her ears, and her protests as determined as a dam ready to collapse against the pressure of flooding waters. "R-Really…."

Makoto shrugged. "Hey, we're all a little messed up in the head. It's what a year of nonstop fighting does to you. But look on the bright side! At least our quirks don't harm anyone!"

"Unless it's our wallets."

She cringed. "Yeah. Unless it's our wallets. Bah, listen to us talk while there's an energy displacement nearby. How do we know it's not a demon that's forced its way here from whatever dimension it comes from?"

"It can't be," said Ami, "because if it was, it would feel harmful. This doesn't."

"Yet it's getting closer." Mako lifted a hand to her breast and snapped her fingers. Electricity sparked between them, the sound sharp and clear; the air around her was charged, stank of sulfur. "Keep your guard up, Ami. This could all be a ploy—"

"Top of the afternoon, ladies!" hailed a high and grandiose voice. It was right on top of them, behind them, and Makoto jumped and stopped just short of revealing magic to the redhead standing at arm's length. Ami's eyes flew open in surprise, but she turned around and regarded the blue-haired girl jogging (and panting quite heavily) to catch up.

For one brief moment, they openly stared at them. And a single thought ran through their minds, shoving aside the fluctuating background noise that was Terra: _The signature's coming from them…?_

The redhead stood a head shorter than Makoto, and she stared up at her with a cheeky grin. "That's quite a bit of 'talent' you got there! Mama fed you good, I can tell!" She poked one of Makoto's breasts, her grin broadening and making her eyes squint.

Makoto's eyes bulged in their sockets, a fierce blush overcoming her cheeks. "E-Excuse me?!"

The blue-haired girl clocked the back of her friend's head. "D-Don't listen to her! She's just saying that because you remind her of someone we know!"

"Look at her, Sayaka! God_damn_! She's more stacked than Ma—_ow ow ow OW OW OW OW_!"

"As I was saying: someone we know!" the girl repeated, applying more pressure on the twisted girl in her grip. "Just ignore her, okay? She does that to every brunette we see."

Ami flashed an amused look at Makoto. _That sounds like you with Nephrite…._

Makoto sent her a flustered glare. _Oh shush!_ She turned back to the girls, to Sayaka. The displaced eternano clung to her and her friend like static on a shroud, but some of the particles wavered and struggled to stay on before they let go and dispersed into residue. Others simply _broke down_ without a trace at all, and that was very odd. _Eternano always replenishes itself, _she told herself. _Why isn't it?_ She put her attention all on Sayaka, and in a tidal surge Terra clamored loudly, indecipherably; Makoto brushed them off.

"Anyway," she began. "Sayaka, right? Is there something you need?"

"In a way," said Sayaka. "Perhaps you could be of help to us. See, Kyoko and I are wondering if—"

"Your names," Kyoko interrupted. "We need to know your names."

"Our names?" said Ami.

Sayaka rolled her eyes, ran a hand down the length of her face. Makoto thought she heard her grumble "We went over this a thousand times—"

"You look like a Mamoru," Kyoko said to Makoto. "Chino Mamoru, to be exact. And you," to Ami, nodding sagely, lips pressed together in deep, deep thought, "you got 'Sorano Hikaru' written all over."

"Well…no," said Ami. "You're wrong on both accounts. I'm Mizuno Ami, and that's Kino Makoto."

"'S that so?"

"Kyoko, we don't have time for this—" Sayaka began.

"Actually, one of our friends is called Mamoru," said Makoto. "If, uh, that's any help at all?"

"That's fine and dandy, but that's not what _WE_" she leveled a stern look Kyoko's way "wanted to ask. We're looking for some friends of ours: Kaname Madoka and Akemi Homura. Two girls, our age. Madoka's got pink hair and Homura has black hair. We heard they moved into this area, but we haven't gotten word back from them."

"You ladies look like you get around a lot," said Kyoko. "On foot, that is! On foot! Got that air about ya, so ya do. Perhaps you've seen 'em on your travails, by any chance?"

Makoto and Ami exchanged curious glances. Terra's voices receded, indecipherable as ever but mindful of the establishing psychic link all Guardians—and all who were trained in Silver Millennium _magicka obscura_—were bound to. _Do you know anyone by those names?_ the former asked.

Ami shrugged. _I'm afraid not. You?_

_Can't say I have. But—_Makoto's eyes flicked towards Sayaka.

_But?_

_Let's get them out of the way first._ "Sorry, we haven't," said Makoto, smiling apologetically. "Do you have their email addresses, or friends with them on social media?"

"Unfortunately, no," said Kyoko. "We, uh, were out of town without Internet for a while, and when we were on our way back the reception…."

"It was pretty crappy," Sayaka added.

"But are you _sure_ you haven't seen 'em? It's not urgent, per se, but it'd make things totes easier for us."

"No. Sorry," said Ami.

Sayaka heaved a great sigh, rubbed the back of her neck. "I see…Well, thanks anyway. I don't expect those two to have gone very far. They're kinda new to the area."

"We hope you find them," said Makoto.

Sayaka smiled, an odd cocktail of wistfulness, bitterness, and a humor the Guardians couldn't quite understand, as if it was a joke only she (and maybe Kyoko) would. "Heh, yeah. Tell me about it. Come on, Kyoko. Back to square one."

"Yup." Kyoko spun cleanly on her heel, jammed a hand in one pocket of the blazer, and raised the other in a lazy wave. "See ya 'round, Blue, Miss Talent."

Makoto and Ami watched them go. "Nice kids," said the former, when they were far enough away. "Kinda reminds you of Rei and Usagi in the old days, don't they?"

Ami nodded, but her gaze did not waver. "So they do…but why would they ask for our names?"

"Because they might be metem."

"Metem!" Ami exclaimed, sucking in a breath through her teeth. "Are you certain?"

"I think so. There was something familiar about them…no, about Sayaka. I don't know how. You could say I felt it in my bones, but by then the earth drowned that out. I don't know. Did you notice any shifts when you looked at them? Like your mind or body reacting more?"

"No. The possibility of coming across metem from the era of the Alliance here in this universe is very slim. We were lucky enough for Luna and Artemis find us and reform the Inner and Outer Courts."

"Ugh, don't even go there," Makoto groaned. "Just mentioning quantum mechanics gives me a headache! I don't know how Setsuna can put up with it."

"If it's any comfort, even I don't think she's completely used to it," said Ami. "But as it was her job in her previous life, so it is now in this one. She can manage."

"Only because she's been doing it so long and has the patience of grass growing!"

"And that, Mako, is why she's the Guardian of Time." Ami looked back in front of them, down the street. Kyoko and Sayaka were gone. "Speaking of which, perhaps we should bring this up to her. If they are metem from our thread of the Silver Millennium, then Setsuna would know."

Makoto frowned. "It wouldn't hurt to try."

Although she didn't show it, she was surprised to _actually_ hear Terra agree. Or, for what it was worth, one of the very few times in her life she would understand the earth as clearly as any spoken word.

* * *

"So…what do you think?" Sayaka posed. "You think it's them?"

Kyoko scoffed. "This coming from the person who didn't want me trying to guess their names in the first place? Hmph!" She kicked a stray pebble with the tip of her foot. "I dunno," she grumbled. "They _look_ like Amy and Lita, and they _sound_ like Amy and Lita, but…I dunno. I never even met them in my past life, so I don't have any memories of them. Well, except for Raye. Jesus, was she prudish." She stared at her companion out of the corner of an eye. "Why're you askin'? Do _you_ think it's them?"

Sayaka stopped. Kyoko did, too, a couple paces behind her. Seeing only her back, Kyoko couldn't fathom what kind of expression she was wearing, except she had her head tilted back. Back toward a blue sky that was rarely, if ever, present on ancient Mars, for it reflected the red and orange deserts, canyons, and mesas. As it was now, bright and clean and washed out, Kyoko felt a stab of envy. It was very pretty, not plain and boring and the exact same shade, and wide, too, as if someone might fall right into it if she stared at it for too long. Or drowned in it, like her hair.

"May 16, in the year 13,287, during the height of the Elicius, the time in spring when Jupiter gets a lot of thunderstorms, tornados, and hurricanes. Sunny day but windy as hell; the clouds were flying by, little stray wisps of the things. Elicius is also a period of renewal, raunchiness, wine tastings, and the Heart of Jove—the biggest coliseum on the planet. There was a tournament going on. Armed combat and to the death. Buncha hotshots and amateurs from all over the System were there. I don't know their names. I don't care to. But Galaxia was present; the same Galaxia the Guardians fought and cleansed of Chaos a couple years ago. So was Makoto Kinp. Lita Fulgens." Sayaka spun on the balls of her feet and faced Kyoko, grinning triumphantly. "Princess of Jupiter and digouter in training. She and I watched Galaxia kicking ass."

Kyoko glanced behind her, but Ami and Makoto were nowhere to be seen; they had walked a far enough distance. Then she looked back at Sayaka. "Huh," she said. "You sure?" Not doubtful, but curious.

"Damn sure. It's not the first memory I've had of Lita Fulgens or the planet Jupiter."

Kyoko nodded, not thunderstruck or shocked, but it shone in her eyes: a job well done. "Just like that," she mumbled. "Man. Didn't think past recollections would be that easy. Well, at least yours were entertaining. I was running around with atheists rioting on Mars and giving those Kagutsuchi warrior-priests hell."

"Why does that not surprise me?"

"Because you know me too well." Kyoko shrugged. "So what do we do now? We found Lita Fulgens, but it tells us nothing about Mizuno Ami. Hell, it doesn't tell us anything about the others. What're the odds that the Guardians—the True Guardians of the Alliance—are in this universe? Who's to say a couple is in this one but the rest are in another? What if it's just Lita?"

"If there's one True Guardian about, then all the True Guardians are about," said Sayaka. "That's how we'll know the Pithos and the Tool are in the right place, but I get what you're saying, though."

"We should go around and locate the rest of the Guardians while we're at it, just to be sure. Sure as hell can't wait for Mami and the Kid to pop up."

"I know." Sayaka rocked back on her heels, hands in her pockets, staring up at the distant needle that was Tokyo Tower. Déjà vu washed over her. "We're gonna have to keep a low profile. It might be just me imagining things, but I think Makoto recognized me. Or at least knew something was off about us. We don't exist in this universe."

"Well we do now, and sooner or later they're gonna know about us," said Kyoko. "And Mami and the Kid, and Madoka, and Homura and all her circus freak friends—"

"I get it, I get it. I just hope they don't get the wrong idea and think we're bringing the next big bad to their doorstep…."

"Not if we stay a hundred steps ahead of her."

"Yeah," Sayaka sighed and frowned. She turned in a half-circle, drinking in all that Azabu-Juuban had to offer. "So…where do we go from here?"

"We follow the yellow brick road made of eternano," said Kyoko, and smacked the girl soundly on the back, nearly bowling her over. "You should know this by now. Get your head in the game."

Sayaka glared at her and tagged behind her, grumbling. "Right. The eternano. It's always the eternano…."


	8. inheritors: der zweite

**8.**  
**\- inheritors: der zweite -**

"…_The problem with mirrors is that they are frail—both on the inside and the outside, and when it breaks it provides the viewer with an uneven picture that is difficult to ascertain…."  
_\- From _The Thriceborn Fallacy_

* * *

AND WHEN THE CAGE HAD BROKEN, so did the Law of Cycles become undone. All the ills of the world were freed: poverty, hunger, disease, murder; and on their coattails the sins of humanity bore fruit: wrath, greed, sloth, lust, gluttony, envy, and pride. But there was an eighth sin, a cardinal sin if you will, that was eternally bred in the mortal heart, a parasite that could only be crushed by the weight of the anger, the sadness, and the tortuous joy of the world, and that sin was called hope.

All this had struck the Lightbringer with the force of a long-dormant volcano suddenly become active, for the suppression of sins and curses and negativity throughout the years that had once help balance the world's virtues and miracles in the Time Before were released in an explosive fury. Pain she had numbed from timelines past and discarded and in the previous Law of Cycles was now realized in terrific, epileptic quakes.

However, the greatest source of that pain was in her eyes. It hurt to see, hurt to keep them open, hurt to think, and in between scouring the land for the Mother and her disparate Quartet with her dolls and Artisan and maintaining a semblance of order she suffered through debilitating headaches; and as the search continued they grew progressively worse until, one day, one particular migraine hit her: the most severe one yet, and it left her weak and immobile upon her throne. Then she had fallen unconscious, and her dreams in the dark were lonely and sad and fearful, reminders of failures that had been removed from the general timestream in the Time Before and reminders of the disasters that would soon be wrought upon the destruction of the current Law of Cycles as done by the Mother's naivety.

She awoke later in the dead of night, but instead of beholding a horizon surely brimming with anger and sorrow, of a people lost without Light, she saw darkness—an infinite void without stars, skyscrapers, rolling grass, and gilded bird cages. She heard her dolls chattering in their garbled tongue but could not see them. She heard the birds in their nocturnal environment but could not find them.

She was _blind_, and she was _lost_.

* * *

Brothers and sisters, if there is one thing you must remember from your time spent here, remember this lesson:

You do not need eyes to see everything. Sometimes, our sight is more of a burden than a benefit. What we see may be a mirage, or a lie, or the lack of a whole construct. When we close our eyes or deny ourselves the mundane layer, we find the pieces that are normally missing and complete the picture; and whereupon the picture is complete, you are one step closer to transcending the planes.

However, you must also remember this: what you see in the transmundane may lead you astray. There are horrors in the Void just as there are miracles. Each is born from a single thought, although most evolve beyond the mnemonic sphere and culminates into emotive threads: conscious installation, mental processes, perceptual output, judgmental resolution, memorial containment.

But not all breach the primitive membrane into sentience; those that do and those that don't…they twist upon themselves. Self-cannibalize the sputum of their afterbirth and emerge into something alien, incomprehensible.

But it is not incomprehensible, my brethren. Nay, because we know such an evolution is the work of the power of Chaos—_abysso dynamic_. It is how men are made. It is how gods are born.

Fear not the dark, but fear not the light! Your discretion is your greatest ally, your ginny-knife an extension of the will of eternity.

Hone it! Wield it! Only then will you truly see what lies between the planes.

* * *

_"Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire. He had a little scroll open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the land, and called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring. When he called out, the seven thunders sounded. And when the seven thunders had sounded, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, 'Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down.' And the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven—"_

"You know, it's a good thing I'm the only other person to come in here, otherwise you'd be getting an earful for doing the school's reputation a disservice." The book was forced down onto the desk, and Mikomi jumped as the sound jarred her from the lure of the pages. She visibly relaxed and glared at Nozomi's wide, toothy grin. "Believe me, if I were your teacher you wouldn't want to put up with my mouth running off a mile a minute."

"It wouldn't matter because we live together," said Mikomi. She shut the book, picked up her bookcase and undid the clasp.

"And would you really have it any other way?"

"Unless it's for the sake of appearances? No, not really."

The grin softened to a smile. Nozomi leaned against the desk behind her, mindful of the bucket of water sitting on the surface, catching a glimpse of the title of the book. "The Bible again?"

"Actually, it's more of a study guide on the Book of Revelations. Pretty good shape for an old copy."

"Huh." Nozomi rolled her shoulders. "I figured you'd go for something more…what's the word, antique? Like Socrates or Plato. Maybe something a little more contemporary, like Descartes."

"I couldn't decide on which one to rent out from the library, so I just settled for this. The writings might be a little archaic for my tastes, but at the very least it's open to a number of interpretations."

Nozomi wrinkled her nose. "Well, that's fine and dandy, but I'd rather not get too involved in religious literature. Nothing personal, though. You know how much of a minefield it is. Anyway," she pushed off the desk, "let's finish up here. Before Professor Amanogawa or somebody walks in. Then we'll _really_ get a talking to, and the only person who deserves to give you one—"

"Is me," said Mikomi, closing the bookcase shut. She smirked at Nozomi's dumbfounded look. "If one of us gets in trouble, then it's only fair for the other to set that person straight so it doesn't happen again. Or at least minimize the likelihood of trouble."

A range of emotions washed over Nozomi's face: protest, hesitation, confusion, exasperation. She settled for stubbornness and turned her head aside to hide the blush blooming on her cheeks. "…You know me too well." Her eyes flicked to Mikomi, saw her knowing, mirthful smile, and looked away, hunching her shoulders to make herself appear smaller. It did nothing to stop the blush from deepening.


	9. until my dying breath

**9.**  
**\- until my dying breath -**

"Sorry to bother you all," Yuuichirou says as he slides open the shoji door, "but I brought some manju and tea. Gramps and I figured you might be hungry."

Rei wakens from the trance and looks over her shoulder. She doesn't show him the annoyance at having been pulled away from Kagutsuchi's warmth, the transposition of mantling the Second Sight and giving herself—a vessel of the five elements—unto Him. "Thanks, Yuuichirou. I didn't know it'd gotten this late." Well, five o'clock wasn't late, but He was searching, sifting through the fog of memory, bringing light to the darkness….

She moved to get up, but Phoebe's hand stayed her, and past the cheery disposition the look in her eyes said as much. From her periphery, Rei watched Demi scramble to her feet and take the tray of treats. "Oh you're a doll, Yuu-chan! Thanks! We'll be sure the missus eats her portion and leave not a crumb behind! Right, sis?"

"Of course," said Phoebe, smirking down at Rei.

"Now hold on just a second, I do too eat—"

"Now now, don't be like that!" said Demi. "Yuu-chan means well, so be a dear! Enjoy! Bask!" She kneeled and set the tray determinedly, almost forcefully, in front of Rei, and between the shadows of her dark hair there was a sharp, avian gleam, bright and fully alert. "It's the thought that counts!" she added, smiling sweetly. The long, painted nails on one hand grazed the peaks of Rei's knuckles.

Rei glanced at the buns and tea, then looked past Demi's shoulder toward Yuuichirou, deflating a little inside. Gods above, why did he always remind her of a puppy? It always made her feel bad for being so hard on him but at the same time quite glad he noticed and cared about her well-being. However, even though the thought cheered her up, the reality of it would settle in and deflate her even more. So he meant well…but she was a Guardian. She could look after herself….

A lot more than anyone, metem or not, ever could, in a world where demons and aliens were attracted to the magic whose secrets were lost to mankind.

"Well…alright. A few minutes' break wouldn't hurt," Rei conceded, gently batting Demi's hand away. "Thanks, Yuuichirou." She gave him a smile, one that was sure to warm him considerably.

And it did, for his face lit up as though he'd received a present he had never expected to get but had always wanted. He blushed and rubbed the back of his equally reddening neck. "Y-You're welcome! I-I hope you like them! Anyway, I'll leave you ladies be. Give me a holler if you want seconds!"

"Oh, we will," Demi said in a hushed voice to Rei, bearing her teeth in a face-tugging grin. Rei glared at her.

"We will," said Phoebe. "Thanks again, Yuu-san." She waved a little goodbye to the man as he closed the shoji door and left. When he was gone, she turned to her sister. "Loyal as ever, just like the priests of old."

"So he is," said Demi, nibbling on a bun. "But he'd never make it as a Talonite. Not quick enough, not strong enough, unless the adrenaline kicks in. And even then, it still wouldn't. He's way too soft."

"The same can be said for any human, but time and again they've proven to be surprisingly resilient."

"And persistent!"

"Ah yes! One can't forget about the importance of persistence, be it in the face of danger…and love." Phoebe looked pointedly at Rei, but there was an inflection of that old amusement in that voice. The impish twinkling in those inhuman crimson irises. "A powerful weapon…and a powerful weakness. Wouldn't you agree?"

Rei balked. "Why do you always bring that up? I've told you and Deimos over and over again: there's nothing going on between us!"

Phoebe—Phobos—shrugged a shoulder. "There doesn't have to be. And it doesn't matter what kind of love it is, either, but, as you just said, we've told you that one too many times. You're a smart girl. Now eat. Those manju don't taste good once they're refrigerated, and I'll be damned to eat the crumbs the next day!"

"I'm with her on that one," Deimos agreed. "You gotta toss us something else besides stale bread and rice crackers! How about a pinch of ashes or some of that coal? At least it'll make us feel closer to Kagutsuchi than the common pigeon. It doesn't even have to be anointed!"

"Now, sis, just because we're therians doesn't mean we should forego tradition," Phobos gently admonished her. "Remember that the Flame always burns brightest before the summer solstice…and the occasional Indian summer, but such occurrences have always been debated amongst the castes. And last I checked, we're a few weeks off before then."

"I get why we did that," said Rei, grabbing a bun off the tray, "but since they're consecrated in the Flame, wouldn't it better to leave them as is? You can always be close to Kagutsuchi through prayer and duty." She glanced at the coals smoldering at the edges of the bonfire and grimaced. From piecing together the fragments of the old life throughout the years in battle and meditation, she had vivid images of partaking the ashes and scraps of consecrated coal with fellow priests, smiths, and scribes often before settling into their routines or during festivals. They tasted wooden and smoky, bland in the beginning but strong and overpowering following thereafter, and the power gained from them would open the magic circuits. The eternano would flow free, unbound within the gated confines of the mortal coil, and the sensation was a euphoric high that literally burned. But now, some hundreds of thousands of years later, Rei the metem found the thought of ingesting the very same coal to be revolting.

"We have a more personal connection to Kagutsuchi-sama, being elementals," said Deimos, breaking off her piece and tossing the other half to Deimos. "How do I put this? It's kinda like…how you get under the covers on a cold day and you warm up. Or, if you wanna be poetic, going back into the womb because on a deeper level you're aware that your mother is keeping you safe. It's only for a little while, and it's an echo of the real thing, but it makes you feel good."

"And speaking of good: it'll make you feel more at ease if you mantle the Sight by partaking in the sacrament," said Phobos, staring straight into the core of the fire. Wood popped and coal smoldered, powdery white and overcast grey. "Prayer may be a byline to closeness, but it doesn't carry the same weight. If you want answers, you need to be more proactive."

"I know that," Rei stressed irritably around the mouthful of bread.

"As you should!" said Deimos. "The Ordo Unguis didn't get their name for putzing around until the last minute! They were fast, my friend! In and off the field! They doled out the hand of justice to anyone who did them wrong—not just against the Word of Pater Martis, but the Forum itself!"

"I _know_. I was born and baptized in the blood of the Phoenix. I was raised under His Wings, lived by His Many Talons, and spoke the Word in the same Breath. Gods, how could I forget when I had you two around?" Rei snatched the teacup and sipped its contents, savoring the taste of citrus and almonds.

Phobos and Deimos exchanged glances: the former mischievous, the latter amused. "That's because you stood out the most," said Phobos.

"There was another," added Deimos, "but she was a heretic and a non-believer, and that clashed with our interest in her and our devotion to the Word."

"She was also a nuisance," said Phobos tiredly, but there was not a trace of malice in her voice. "She and every other hardliner always gave the Ordo Unguis a difficult time."

Rei peered into her cup. The liquid was a golden yellow, the same color as the Sun at high noon as it hung directly above the Basilica and under it the Talonites walked, keeping the peace, from within and from without, to the lowliest to the most sensitive crimes—misdemeanors and felonies, political conspiracies and religious heresy. None of those, however, were as treasonous and damning than the unspoken, the unknown, the unheard. Nothing was as unpredictable as thoughtcrime.

That was when Rei remembered. "Just like her." She set aside the teacup and, hesitating for just a second, reached into the Flame and snatched a pinch of bottom ash from the largest branch. There was no pain.

Deimos sniffed. "Well! It took you long enough!"

"Sorry…but I wasn't sure. I'm still not, and I'm not about to push Minako into telling me any more than what Artemis passed onto me."

"You could have probed her, you know. Or, if you'd rather take matters into your own hands—"

"I'm not going to torture her," Rei snarled. "Maybe my more zealous brethren preferred to make ends meet that way, but I don't. My talons are not so sharp or so bloody."

Deimos smiled. "I know…but the option is always there."

"And I'll always refuse it. This isn't wartime." Rei sighed, rolled the granule between thumb and forefinger. "I wish she'd open up more. She either keeps such things, like memory recovery and insecurities, to herself or tells Artemis. Just because she's High Guardian of the Inner Court doesn't give her the excuse to retreat into her shell and figure out how to approach the problem."

"She has her reasons," said Phobos.

"Maybe she's not so sure herself," said Deimos. "Chains of command have a helluva way of biting down hard."

Rei nodded. "I wish I'd gotten a better look. I might've known it was her. Then again, she might not be. For all I know, and for all Mina knows, it could've been one big coincidence."

"Well, you won't know until you try, right?" said Phobos.

"Yeah. Lord Kagutsuchi might have an idea. The question is: will it be enough?" Rei cupped her hand and allowed the ball of ash to roll into the cusp of her palm. Clenched and unclenched her fingers over it, a retractable cage made of shadows. The wood popped again, split and collapsed on itself; the fire felt immensely hot and pervasive on her face. Beckoning.

Within the dancing core, she could discern the wavering image of the Face of the Lord of the Flame gazing back at her. To her it appeared to be very birdlike with shades of dragon scales around a pair of oval cat's eyes. She recalled that the vast majority of the Martian populace believed He wore the form of the ever burning phoenix. Other minor sects saw Him as a salamander, a dragon, or a wolf. Very few claimed He was all of those and preferred to cloth Himself as He saw fit, so was the nature of gods. She wondered if when she was mantled He would reveal His true self, but it was a moot thought. She would be outside herself, outside the world and between the planes; she would not see Him as He Is in during the Dawning of the Stars.

She heaved a sigh and closed her fist over the ash. "Right…let's do this." To Phobos and Deimos, she said, "If anything should happen to me—"

"Fear not, Guardian," said Phobos. "We'll be there to revive you."

"The Seer's Wings stretch far and wide," said Deimos. "You've been His Chosen for how long now? You've got this, Raye."

"I hope so," said the Guardian of Mars, and popped the granule in her mouth. She swallowed it immediately, pushing aside the disgust and disbelief and nostalgia borne on that smoky, oily flavor. Gods, it had been too long. The Ordo Unguis was gone, its talons, wings, and feathers swept away in Metalia's tainted fire or reborn by the grace of Serenity, memories locked away and almost surely never to reawaken again.

_Times change; whether it's one person or one million, His work must carry on._ Rei clapped her hands together and closed her eyes. Prayed to her namesake, the Lord Hi-no-Kagutsuchi, for His Permission to bear the weight of His Eyes, His Second Sight, and waited.

She cleared her mind. Banished the sensation of sweat beading her brow; the burning aftertaste on her tongue; the song resonating in her veins; the auras of Phobos and Deimos, Yuuichirou and Grandpa, the native birds and the trees and the grass and the earth and the wind all around.

Kagutsuchi heard.

He folded His Wings upon her.

Her eyes flew open, pupils dilated.

She saw—the girl on the street. Dark hair, violet eyes _(Saturnite eyes)_, taller and older than her metem incarnation. She had walked with another girl: just as tall and old if not the same age but with pink hair, and her presence echoed resonated within Rei, like a bell tolling the new hour. They were connected like the red string of fate. Yet the string ran further, further than she could see, deeper than she knew.

_How?_

**DESTINY.**

_In what way?_

**LOVE. PROMISE. DESPAIR. THE ECHOES OF QUANTUM ABUSE.**

_Abuse? What do you mean? The only chronomancer I know of is Arch Guardian Meiou, and she's never had to abuse the laws of the Brink unless she really had to._

He did not elaborate. Rei did not press Him.

She saw—the stunned look on Minako's face, standing in the middle of the crosswalk, oblivious to Artemis's calls to wake up. Her eyes were blank and far away and her jaw slack. The cat was just about to sink his claws into her, out of the lost past and back into reality, when she came to. When she had the answer. The key.

**BUT A KEY IS USELESS WITHOUT A LOCK.**

She saw—herself, Raye Gradivus, on Mars, in the Church of the King of the Hunt. Clad in the form-fitting battle suit of the Ordo Unguis, seated before the Eternal Flame (stronger and brighter than what it is now), the giant gunbai uchiwa splayed next to her on the wooden floor.

Across from her, on her knees and ready to pounce, was the girl. But here she was younger, smaller. Frailer.

"_Serenity allows this to happen and you do nothing!" she snarled. Her fists were tight, white balls in her lap. "You and every other planet in the Alliance have the clout…the manpower…to see the Hegemony crumble!"_

"_Change does not come so lightly, nor does opinion sway so easily," said Raye Gradivus. "It would be foolish to think the good people of the Duumvirate to accept it."_

"_It would be a lot better than what we have now!"_

"_Would it be? You're looking at nearly nine hundred years worth of deeply ingrained tradition. To tear it all away and enforce upon them a way of life they are unaccustomed to…that is not freedom. It's slavery."_

"_You don't know what it's like out there. You don't know what I've gone through. What _we_ go through. You and your damn Flame can't see past the lies you've been told, too complacent to tear your eyes from it and go beyond it."_

"_Watch your tongue, termite!" said Phobos. She and her sister were sitting behind Raye, half-in and half-out of the shadow of the wall. "Not another word, lest we rip it out and feed it to our Lord!"_

"_You should be thankful the Lady Gradivus bothered to grant you an audience at all," said Deimos."And so seriously, too!"_

"_And there is your problem," the girl scoffed, gesturing at the therians. "Puppets speak only words put into their mouths and nothing else. They are blind, deaf, just like you."_

_Phobos rose, talons flashing. Raye held up a hand. "Sit," she growled lowly. "I'll not have blood spilled on this ground." The therian hesitated, but she relented, and lowered herself back to the floor. "It will not happen," she told the Saturnite. "The government, let alone the Alliance, will not act on the whims of a mere child; and if such a scenario were possible, the damages to the galactic economy and our relations with Saturn and Pluto irreparable. If they so wish, they would dispatch the Children, and that would be the end of that campaign." Raye leveled a stern stare at her. "You do not want to cross them."_

"_So I've been told," she spat venomously. "But even the toughest mountain can crumble, for it is an embodiment of nature, and nature is always at war with itself. The power the Children wield is too great even for them. One mistake will see their very atoms deconstructed to the iota and assimilated into the ether. They are not as invincible or as immortal as they make themselves out to be."_

"_All the same, they are not an enemy I want to contend with," said Raye. "I will tell you outright, Miss Faustus: as bold as you are, you have no chance in succeeding your mission. It is a hopeless endeavor that will only end in your death, and dying at such a young age is the most terrible death of all. So you will forgive me when I say I will not support you. You may call us blind and deaf if you want, but if there is anyone who is truly so falls upon you." Her features softened a fraction. "That kind of attitude…it's cancerous. You feed it with your hate for the system, your frustration at the lack of change, your despair towards the plight of the casteless…and it's eating you alive."_

"_It gives me strength."_

"_That may be so, but to what ends?" Raye sighed, suddenly feeling weary to her bones. She closed her eyes and for a moment there was silence. The only sounds were the crackling of the Eternal Flame and the low, droning chants of the daily sermon in the antechamber. Phobos and Deimos remained where they were, studying the Saturnite with intense, distrustful eyes. "Tell me," she began, "do you believe in reincarnation?"_

"_Of course I do. All the lowborn and casteless do. Even the bastard highborn and their house sheep, Janus damn them. What kind of a question is that?"_

_Raye looked at her, and it was grim. Sympathetic. "What Lord Kagutsuchi sees I see...to an extent. He is not Chronos and what we bear witness to is…not entirely accurate. Still, it might be important because anything is possible and there is a chance that certain events will come to pass."_

"_And what does your god show you, Talonite?"_

"_That you will carry your mission in your next life…and anyone who crosses your path—for good or for ill—will suffer for it. However, at the very least, you will have the strength to pursue it. Incredible strength. I daresay it might equal that of the Children of Aeon, if you are determined." Raye frowned. "And you are. You'll stop at nothing until you get what you desire. Am I right, Miss Faustus?"_

_The Saturnite turned her head slightly towards the Eternal Flame. The light cast an ethereal, orange glow on her pale face, her dark hair spilling shadows across those pools of amethyst. Raye realized the image suit her, and it unsettled her._

_Then she looked to her and said in a voice full of steel and confidence: "Whatever it takes."_

**NO MORE.**

The scene retreated into the fog, leaving behind the darkness of her thoughts. It happened so quickly it made Rei jump, but she did not stir. Her eyelids fluttered, a tic jumping beneath the skin at the corner. _What?_

**NO MORE, MY CHILD.**

_Why? We can't stop here!_

_**THEY SEE.**_

And in the darkness of her thoughts, it ensnared her: a breathless, choking pressure bearing down on her from everywhere and nowhere. It latched onto her and pulled her this way, that way, one way here and one way there, closer and closer to the source.

_**ABERRATION!**_

Rei cried out, but all that escaped was a startled gasp. Heat overtook her—abrupt, breathless, sweltering, in the shape of wings. There was a deep and stentorian roar that popped her ears and jolted her wide awake. She fell and crashed to the floor.

"Milady!"

"Lady Hino!"

She blinked rapidly, clearing her vision. Phobos and Deimos hovered over her, concern and fear etched upon their ageless faces. "Are you alright?" Deimos asked. She clutched a cup of tea, her hands steaming with innate fire. "Do you need to be doused?"

Rei groaned and slowly sat up, to which Phobos assisted. "I'm okay." She took the cup, downed its contents, and with a sigh offered it back. "Thank you. Another, please." The eternano still flared in her veins. The influx of magic and the lifting of the Sight made her heart palpitate painfully, made her distinctly aware of the warmth and sweat radiating off her in waves. "How long was I out?"

"About an hour," said Phobos. "Did you learn anything?"

Deimos pushed the refilled cup into Rei's hands, brows knitted worryingly. Rei pat her on the head to let her know she was indeed fine before she sipped the liquid. The taste of almonds and citrus soothed the sacred fire, but now there was a strong, dull tang to it, reminiscent of rain and wet earth. _They must've enchanted it, just in case something like this happened. _Such was the power of elementals. "Sort of. I got a little history lesson about the Duumvirate. It's…some sort of union between Saturn and Pluto."

"And at their heart was the government, the Chronos Hegemony," said Phobos. "Their religions and cultures are similar due in part to their creation myths, in which Chronos split Himself in two following the battle against Zurvan the Oneless. One half became Saturn, the other Pluto, and His Spirit dissolved into eternano and set into the place the rules of time, life and death. This is a system they call the Law of Cycles."

Rei blinked. "Zurvan? Oh, you mean the Devourer. He's hardly ever mentioned in the old scriptures."

"It depends on which version you're reading into," said Deimos. "It's what the Hegemony believes."

She nodded. "I see. And their cultures? Were they that rigid?"

"If by 'rigid' you mean they followed the rules to the letter, served the public equally, and their justice systems were fair but unrepentant to anyone that wronged neighbor and government alike, then yeah they were," said Deimos. "You wouldn't find 'special treatment' in their dictionaries."

Rei frowned at her reflection in the tea. "That's not what that girl told me."

"Ah, so you did see her!"

"Is it really her, though?" asked Phobos. "Just because they look similar doesn't mean—"

"No, it's her," Rei said confidently. "A little differently from what little I saw, but it's her. My past self…she called her Miss Faustus. I don't know her given name." She drank the liquid, more to gather her thoughts than to savor the taste. "She said…she said she wanted the Alliance destroy the Hegemony. Give the people—the lowborn and casteless—a better life."

Deimos hummed, glanced at Phobos, to which Phobos glanced back. "That's an odd thing to say," she said.

"Indeed," said the other. "They had everything they could hope for, didn't they? Why would she want to change that?"

"I've never heard of the Hegemony having a caste system or allowing slavery."

"The Hegemony was very…isolationist," said Phobos. "They rarely participated in the galactic economic market or conducted business with the other planetary corporations. I don't think any ruling leader, not even Queen Serenity herself, has ever set foot on either world, let alone on the moons or the colonies orbiting Saturn's rings."

"The history books don't go into much detail, either," said Deimos. "Well, other than what you just saw and what we told you."

"And the Children of Aeon?" Rei asked. "What are they? Who are they? They sound like powerful, dangerous soldiers."

"So they were," said Phobos. "Supposedly they're like the Ordo Unguis, but much more secretive. Unfortunately, that's all we know about them. My apologies, Milady."

"We're really sorry we couldn't be more helpful!" said Deimos, bowing low.

"It's alright. Don't worry about it," said Rei, scratching the top of the therian's head. "They're gone, just like the rest of the Order. Still," she added, drawing back, "she's a metem. She could regain her memories and continue her mission, whatever that entails, if she didn't accomplish it in her past life."

"You saw nothing else in your vision?" Phobos asked. "Anything that might clue you in on her background?"

"Other than judging by her eyes she's a Saturnite, no. She wasn't a soldier. She was…She's like how you described Yuuichirou. Too soft. Too weak. But she had fire in her, alright." Rei glanced at the Eternal Flame; most of the wood had been consumed and would have to be provided with more fuel. She recalled the starkness of the shadows on her face, the steely set in her jaw, how off-putting and appropriate the fire made her look. And there was her declaration, as cold as the harsh tundras of the Mercurian north: _"Whatever it takes."_ "Gods, did she have fire."

"But it would never work."

"A noble plan," said Deimos, "but a very foolish one."

Rei hummed noncommittally. She wondered if that girl would truly become a force great and terrible, as the Second Sight provided to Raye Gradivus. Or would those memories remain locked away, never to resurface? And what of the other girl, Faustus the metem's friend? What connection did they share? What did Kagutsuchi know, and what did chronomancy have to do with them?

Most troubling of all…what did He mean by 'they see'?

She started when Deimos poked her forehead with a press of her forefinger and middle finger. "There's more, isn't there?" she asked. "You look so grim when you're holding back."

"Yeah. Yeah, there is. But…."

"But?" Phobos pressed gently.

"But…I don't think you guys can help me make sense." Rei shook her head slowly, surely. "No one in the Courts can…except for Setsuna."


End file.
